Is Choice About Better Test Scores?

Mar 11, 2017

Education Next – Robert Pondiscio

“With Donald Trump in the White House and long-time school choice advocate Betsy DeVos installed as his education secretary, arguments for and against vouchers and scholarship tax credits are burning white hot. A New York Times report and subsequent editorial claimed that “three of the largest voucher programs in the country, enrolling nearly 180,000 children nationwide, showed negative results.” Choice advocates fired back, disputing the methodology of those studies and insisting that the vast majority of “gold standard” research has found that school choice produces “equivalent or superior academic results, usually for a fraction of what is spent on public schools,” in the words of the Cato Institute’s Neal McCluskey. Who’s right? Who’s wrong? Wonky battles over research studies can be illuminating. They can also be irrelevant or premature.”(more)